Worksheets
Worksheet 1
Students looked at an artist model by the name of Rosalie Gascoigne "Tiepolo Parrots" 1976:
Rosalie Gascoigne has used packing boxes to create an artwork based on the remnants of country living of the Australian outback. She has transformed the old packing boxes into an arrangement of contrasting colours textures with different tones and colours of the wood.
The artwork seems to suggest a history of transported items packed for shipping items such as vegetables, fruit and bottles. Gascoigne’s selection of old packing boxes has allowed her to make a comment of the old Australian outback culture. She has also used a 1930s logo for Arnott’s biscuits, the rosella parrot, as a social comment.
Rosalie comments: "My enviroment is what has conditioned me and what I respond to daily. It's what I've got. My art must come out of that... I combine things until they've got a presence - they're not a proper nothing, they are something, something else."
(Sense of Place, exhibition catalogue, Ivan Dugherty Gallery, 1990)
Vocabulary
Assemblages: a sculptural technique of organizing or composing into a unified whole a group of unrelated and often fragmentary or discarded objects.
Icon: a picture, image, or other representation.
Recontextualise: Changing the original object to something new
Worksheet 2
Students looked at an artist model by the name of Marcel Duchamp "Bicycle Wheel 1951"
In 1913 at his Paris studio he mounted the bicycle wheel upside down onto a stool, spinning it occasionally just to watch it. Later he denied that its creation was purposeful, though it has come to be known as the first of his readymades. "I enjoyed looking at it," he said. "Just as I enjoy looking at the flames dancing in the fireplace." It was not until he began making readymades a few years later in New York that he decided Bicycle Wheel was a readymade. The original from 1913 was lost, and Duchamp recreated the sculpture in 1951.
Duchamp invented a new form of art the work presented has become known as a Ready Made sculpture. The definition for Ready Made is taking ordinary manmade objects selected and modified to create a new meaning. It is to be said that Duchamp’s artwork challenges the idea of asking the question - Where is the skill of a traditional sculptor as a carver, modeller or in casting metal?
Some critics suggest that it appears to comment on the mechanisation, the wheel being the invention which led to a mechanical age. In my opinion I think Marcel was only experimenting and processing his ideas. That by chance he discovered a new form of art therefore he comments on the enjoyment of a past time experience. "I enjoyed looking at it," he said. "Just as I enjoy looking at the flames dancing in the fireplace." This sculpture seems to suggest of a favourite past time experience watching flames as he is reminded of the wheel spinning freely on a pedal stool and critics have placed their theories of interpretation. Through history and time this has allowed art critics to cement their views on aspiring artists through art history books. How accurate are the interpretations of art critics to assume Marcel Duchamp’s intentions?
Vocabulary
Ready Made: taking ordinary manmade objects selected and modified to create a new meaning.
Worksheet 3
Students looked at an artist model by the name of John Davis "Fish and Pebbles 1989"
Fish an Pebbles comments on the water ways and the environment we live in. This is suggested by the site specific design that allows us to see it as transitory and impermanent. Made out of sticks specifically eucalyptus twigs for the skeleton, paper for it's form, calico for it's body, Bondcrete for it's texture and bituminous paint for its appeal of wet surfaced scaly skin. The work also suggest the catching of fish because of its net like structure. The use of bitumen creates the idea of an oil slick which allows the viewer to ask the question of water pollution and challenges the audience to ask questions of our stewardship of this planet.
Vocabulary
Site specific: Site-specific art is artwork created to exist in a certain place. Typically, the artist takes the location into account while planning and creating the artwork.
Worksheet 4
John Davis "Fish and Pebbles 1989 Andy Goldsworthy “The Mirror”
Extract 1
The sculpture is created by Andy Goldsworthy “The Mirror”- Andy Goldsworthy is an environmental sculptor in which his use of the natural surroundings creates an art form. He explores and experiments with various natural material such as leaves, grasses, stones, wood, sand, clay, ice, and snow. The seasons and weather determine the materials and the subject matter of his projects. With no preconceived ideas about what he will create, Goldsworthy relies on what nature will give him. Goldsworthy "feels" the energy from nature and transcends that energy into an art form. His transient sculptures contradict the permanence of art in its historical pretense.Because of this mortality of nature, Goldsworthy uses the photograph as a form of documentation to capture the essence of his work.
"Each work grows, stays, decays- integral parts of a cycle which the photograph shows at its height, marking the moment when the work is most alive. There is intensity about a work at its peak that I hope is expressed in the image. Process and decay are implicit."-Andy Goldsworthy.
Answer all questions below using the Extract 1 and the worksheet John Davis as part of your answers.
Describe the materials used to make the sculptures?
What is your first impression about the artworks?
What are the ideas portrayed in each sculpture?
Explain the similarity and describe the relationship between the “Fish and Pebbles” and “Mirror.” Use the art element terms.
How do the sculptures relate to modern life?
Explain how both artist have used and displayed their artworks to the public?
Worksheet 5
Worksheet Peter D Cole in response to questions from Elena Taylor, November 2002
COLE, Peter D Australia 1947 Red, Yellow and Black 2002-2003 painted steel 260 (h) x 240 (w) x 130 (d) cm Courtesy of Australian Galleries, Melbourne VIEW: Artist's Statement | Students will be investigating the artworks of Peter D Cole by reading the Artist Statement interviewed by Elena Taylor, November 2002
ET Red, Yellow and Black is more abstracted than many of your other works. I am curious about how far you can refine your symbols and imagery and still maintain the link with the landscape, and to what extent this work explores more formal concerns?
PC I feel that the element of abstraction has always been in my work, but was previously placed in a context, so that the composition comprised of a balance between both figurative and abstracted or minimal elements thereby forming its own narrative or cosmos. It is probably more accurate to say that I employ and use the elements of modernism where there is a fusion between the abstract and the elemental.
ET There seems to be a beautiful tension between these concepts of representation/abstraction, which is mirrored in the balance and contrast within the work itself of open/closed, solid/void, straight/curved.
PC Red, Yellow and Black this is one of a series of works that are about the balance of positive and negative, creating both a psychological space and a physical space; inside—outside. This space is primal knowledge to everyone.
ET There are few clues in the work which refer back to the source of the imagery. Does it matter if the work is read only in sculptural terms?
PC I would hope that the work was read in sculptural terms, and by this I do not mean a checklist, before an experience can happen. The work allows for the constants of the sculptural process, ie. balance, form, composition, surface, etc., to play their part in an unconscious manner, letting the viewer experience their own relationship to the sculpture and create their own understandings of what they are seeing.
As you said there are few clues referring directly back to the source of the imagery. This is a hard question to answer or say much about because each element takes on its own identity during the making process, almost in an algebraic manner, where the structure is created within a given set of axioms or symbols.
Peter D Cole in response to questions from Elena Taylor, November 2002
1. Explain how the sculpture is made, how big is it, what materials has he used?
2. What ideas are involved in Peter D Cole’s artwork, how does he explore those ideas through his sculpture?
3. Explain how Peter D Cole feels about his artwork?
4. Peter D Cole explains the structural side of his artwork within his interview. Discuss how the audience should see his artwork?
Worksheet 6
Class Activity:
Students demonstrate their ability to think from different points of view and demonstrating a critical understanding in answering the questions provided.
“Escher Drawing Hands”- MC Escher
Answer all questions below
Mc Escher subjects come mostly from his imagination confusing the viewers with bizarre distortions.
Give a personal interpretation of this artwork of Mc Escher and discuss his ideas.
What is your personal response to the artworks? Discuss the question in relation to how it might affect the audience or their world around them.
Explain what signs and symbols (objects) used to communicate to the audience and why?
Worksheet 7
Class Activity: Homework Page Assignment
Students demonstrate their ability to think from different points of view and demonstrating a critical understanding in answering the questions provided.
Siymrn Gill Road Kill 1999-2000 (above)
Answer all questions below related to both artworks
Worksheet 8
In reference to YouTube videos and Extract 1 - http://www.mrtafai.com/year-7-class-activities
Describe the materials used to make the sculptures?
What is your first impression about the artworks?
What are the ideas portrayed in each sculpture?
Explain the similarity and describe the relationship between both artworks.
How do the sculptures relate to modern life?
Explain how the artist has displayed the artworks to the public?
Explain what he means by the comment made - "Each work grows, stays, decays- integral parts of a cycle which the photograph shows at its height, marking the moment when the work is most alive. There is intensity about a work at its peak that I hope is expressed in the image. Process and decay are implicit."
Give a personal interpretation of this artwork of Siymrn Gill and discuss there ideas.
What is your personal response to the artworks? Discuss the question in relation to both artworks how it might affect the audience or their world around them.
Explain what signs and symbols (objects) used to communicate to the audience and why?
Siymrn Gill Washed Up 1993
(Found Glass, engraved words)
(Side image)
